Getting rid of another one of my pre-30 bucket list, as tomorrow I'm finally going down to San Diego for Comic Con. (Sidebar: You have noticed that there are a few more things added to the list, many of which involving food and extreme sports. On the other end, my dream of holding the WWE heavyweight title has been put on the backburner, at least until later on in life. I saw a movie that revealed the true horrors and struggles of being a Wrestler. I'm speaking of course, about Ready to Rumble).
And although Comic Con seems like the perfect destination, you can't simply hop in your car and drive down the 405. It's something that men and women prepare their whole lives for. If you dive in head first, you could end up rocking back in forth in the fetal position as a horde of Stormtroopers circles you.
Yes, I read comic books. Yes, I think that Han shot first. Yes, I work for a publisher. Yes, I can tell you the difference between Sin City-era Frank Miller and 300-era Frank Miller. But you can't just go to Comic Con because you like comics. That's like scrubbing into open heart surgery because you played Operation as a child.
Last week, it turned out that my wisdom teeth had deeper roots than Alex Haley. This time off from work gave me time to sit at home and prepare for comic con. To ease myself into the world of the Con. Like taking trace amounts of iocaine powder to build up an immunity...only with people who still haven't gotten over Greedo shooting first.
1) Reread Watchmen and prepared a five paragraph essay about its merits and why the most glaring problem with the movie wasn't the plot, acting or story structure, but rather that Bubastis was recast with a blue cat. Recommended reading on the subject courtesy of my friend Jason Ho: http://bootlegsketch.blogspot.com/2010/02/things-that-should-not-be-meow.html.
2) Memorized every actor to play Doctor Who, along with reasons why they all sucked. If there's one thing that Who-fanatics like to discuss is why the new Doctor couldn't hold a torchwood to the previous one's TARDIS, if you know what I'm saying. The David Tennant v. Matt Smith debate is slowly turning into fandom's version of "Magic or Bird" or "Beatles or the Stones." The correct answers to the above being: Tennant, Magic and Mick Jagger, obviously.
3) Rewatched Buffy season 1-7. In pure Joss Whedon fashion, I practiced ending every word with the letter "y," since apparently that's how teenagers talk. Other key viewing experiences: the Star Wars trilogy, the IT Crowd, Batman the Animated series, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Kevin Smith's Clerks.
4) The only sport I paid attention to was Pyramid Ball.
5) Instead of traditional alcoholic beverages (see: beer), I began to ween myself towards comic con drinks. The Kryptonite Gimlet. The Dr. Manhattan manhattan. The Namor-tini. Alternative, the Martony Stark. A "Power Man and Iron First" (a black and tan). And the always popular Comic Con beverage: Rockstar energy drinks.
5) I studied a history textbook that has lessons on the Eugenics War, the Cylon War, the Unification War, the Secret War, the Civl War, the first Robotech War, the Telepath War,
At which point, I realized that all of my classroom research couldn't prepare me for the actual experience. So I went down to my LCS (local comic shop for the uninitiated) and spent every day at Comic Smash in Studio City.
6) I got into heated debates about how Crisis on Infinite Earths didn't solve any of the problems posed by the DC Comics Multiverse. Why Dick Grayson is a useless character: he's too old to be Robin but he can never be Batman. How Grant Morrison's run on JLA was superseded by Mark Waid's. Why the finale to Battlestar Galactica is an allegory for Devil worship (apparently the Cylon god is actually Satan. Go fig).
On average, I spent about 25 minutes talking to the guy behind the counter. Then I spent another 17 minutes inching my way to the front door, getting stopped every minute with "But the problem with Y the Last Man was...." or "You know who should have played Superman? Brendan Fraser!"
The following are key pieces of Comic Con lore that I learned from the kind, acerbic staff.
7) Remember: Even though Enterprise was the most recent series, Captain Archer is technically the first Star Trek captain in chronological order.
7.5) It is never okay to insult Captain Janeway. I learned that one the hard way.
8) The Jedi community has pretty much ignored "midichlorians" by this point. The Force is the Force.
9) The Big Bang Theory is the Uncle Tom's Cabin of comic book fans. It is a commercial, oversimplification of the lifestyle. A more apt description would be "it's the Fantastic Four movie version of the Fantastic Four comic book."
But with regards to the Con itself, I was given a clear warning from every veteran I met.
10) The most important lesson is: If you see a girl in a hot costume, beware. Sure, she might be flaunting her Emma Frost costume. But remember: the very fact that she is at Comic Con is a red flag. The fact that she is in costume is a sign that she is insane, batshit Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix crazy.
So if you're going to be in the Whale's Vagina this weekend, but sure to drop by the Bongo Comics booth (#2159) for all of our sweet exclusives. And to make sure that I haven't spent all of my money on variant covers of Uncanny X-Men #500 or joined a religious cult/street gang (I believe that the Dharma Initiative counts as both).
I'll be back on Monday with war stories, photographs, and hopefully I'll be BFFs with Nathan Fillion.
Nothing ever ends, Adrian,
-Max
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